UPDATE: Leonardo DiCaprio Meets with Pope Francis, Speaks Italian

UPDATE, 2:06 p.m.: *Details of DiCaprio’s meeting with the Pontiff have emerged, via The Hollywood Reporter. DiCaprio reportedly greeted the Pope in Italian, then gave him a book of art by Hieronymous Bosch, including a recreation of the painting The Garden of Earthly Delights that hung over his crib as a child. “Through my child's eyes it represented a planet, the utopia we had been given, the overpopulation, excesses, and the third panel we see a blackened sky that represents so much to me of what's going in in the environment," DiCaprio told the Pope. An aide then gave Pope Francis a check from DiCaprio, for the leader to use for charity works “close to your heart.”

Our original story is below.*

It can’t be easy for Leonardo DiCaprio to meet new people he has a lot in common with. When you’re an Oscar-nominated actor many times over, a Hollywood icon, a close pal of Martin Scorsese’sandRihanna’s, and someone who really wants to spend time saving the environment, can there really be that many people on your same page? Lucky for Leo, he’s found someone else who knows exactly how to balance fame with a passion for saving the planet: the Pope.

The Associated Press has it that DiCaprio had an audience with Pope Francis Thursday morning, and though there was no information about their agenda, connecting the founder of the green-minded Leonardo DiCaprio foundation with the author of the environment-focused encyclical Laudato Si isn’t too hard.

DiCaprio is far from the first A-lister to meet with His Holiness in recent years—Angelina Jolieshook his hand after a Vatican screening of her film Unbroken, which featured a character of strong Catholic faith, and everyone from Jennifer Hudson to Mark Wahlberg performed in his presence during his visit to the United States last fall. It’s easy to be cynical and imagine that DiCaprio is cozying up to the Pope in the midst of a campaign for a best-actor Oscar for his role in The Revenant—the Pope isn’t an Academy member, but plenty of Academy members would probably take his endorsement as gold.

But without any splashy photos of the event or press releases about it (Jolie’s visit came with both, as she was promoting Unbroken), we have to take Leo and Francis’s face-to-face for what it was: a meeting between two like-minded crusaders who clearly think they can be more powerful by teaming up. If the sheer power of celebrity could raise CO2 levels in the atmosphere, we’d be well on our way to salvation already.